


Pikelan Day Stories

by baehj2915



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Ficlet Collection, Love Goddess, Post-Campaign 1 (Critical Role), Pre-Canon, Prophetic Visions, The Feywild, Vox Machina Retired, class swap, swashbucklers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:16:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24445684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baehj2915/pseuds/baehj2915
Summary: Ficlets and drabbles written for Pikelan Day celebrations atpikelansource.1- fey/feywild au2- oracle scanlan part 13- oracle scanlan part 24- class swap au, love domain pike part 15- class swap au, swashbuckler scanlan part 26 -oracle scanlan part 3 (still coming soon!)
Relationships: Scanlan Shorthalt/Pike Trickfoot
Comments: 11
Kudos: 30





	1. Feywild au

**Author's Note:**

> The challenge for May's Pikelan Day was fey au or feywild stuff, so I tried to do a little blend of both. This is written vaguely enough to be either set in the cr1 feywild arc, or for some unexplained level 20 post campaign excursion to the feywild. Take your pick. 
> 
> ~*~

~*~

“Dawn, Dawn!” he called to the retreating figure. He simply could not live if she left him forever. 

The beautiful nymph turned her face to him. Like a crescendo, like the witness of the sunrise, warm anticipation suffused his body. His lungs filled with the air of wakeness, perhaps for the first time. 

Everywhere her skin glowed from within, pink and golden and orange rays of sunlight pulsing inside her. Her brightness almost obscured her, except he knew with more than sight the inexplicable familiarity of her face, the curve of her cheek, the bow of her smile, her eyes like the sky. He knew her the way all creatures know the sun, and long for the life that begins in it. He was instantly stricken, bereft at the thought of her turning her benevolence away from him. 

“O glorious Dawn, I am merely a lowly satyr, unworthy of a nymph such as yourself. But if you bestow upon me your favor for but a night I will laud your beauty with song for the rest of my pitiful days.” 

The cascading mane of heavenly light around her face fluttered delicately as her perfect lips formed a small frown. Finally she deigned to speak to him and said: “Umm… what?” 

“Please, I beg of you. Bless me with your presence here a while.” He scrambled about himself. Surely he had an instrument to woo her with. There was a reeded flute of some kind by his hooves and he snatched it up. 

For a moment she turned away and began some kind of nymph speech to a being behind her he had not even noticed. Some kind of large tree sprite covered in leaves and twigs. 

“Wait, O nymph,” he called. “If you must bid me adieu, make it aubade. Let me ply you poetry and song in honor of your beauty.”

There was a long silence from the nymph of sunrise, only hearing the planetary rush of the sunlight emanating from her. She gracefully kneeled on the ground next to him, saturating both him and the meadow grass with her luminous kindness. 

Thus she spake: “Okay. So, tell me again about the satyr thing.”

He looked down at his simple hooves and thick goaty pelt and thought it was pretty self-explanatory. “I am but reveler. A simple wayfarer in this realm.” The words sounded familiar in an untrustworthy, douche-y way, but he discarded the feeling. “You honor me with your polity but I’m more than just lusty satyr. I will make music for you befitting a legend. If you allow me, I can win your attention.” 

Off her fathomless smile, he started to pour his longing for her bright goodness into music. He needed to build something for her. Traditional notes of love odes and the ribaldries of the satyrs merged in his music, and as he was only beginning to isolate a theme unique power of her beauty, she laughed a ringing musical laugh, appropriate for a nymph. A strange elixir of fear and yearning coursed through him as her gentle hand brought his instrument away from him. As he considered that his longing might destroy him here, she smiled deeper, a smile to get lost in, and he did. 

The rosy tips of her fingers caressed the side of his face and when he opened his eyes, Pike finished casting her restoration spell. 

Scanlan blinked a few times. He had to reorient himself to feeling the reality around him. He was leaning against a tree, sitting on the ground. Although it was feywild ground so the grass was lush and purple, and the tree was abnormally warm. But it was real. 

And Pike was kneeling next to him in the grass that nearly came up to their chests. A white ringlet of hair was fallen loose from her fun buns, curling up from the humidity. Her slightly dirt streaked breast plate clanked slightly against her pauldron as she reached out again to touch his chin. And when she smiled the skin around her scar wrinkled. 

She was extremely real. Extremely beautiful, just not in a glowing, embodiment of heavenly light sort of way. 

Not at that moment at least. 

He quickly double checked—no more goat legs. He wasn’t totally sure how to feel about that. 

“I hate the Feywild,” he said. 

Pike threw her head in laughter, and Scanlan felt a little more of that warmth in his chest.  
“Did you really think I was a nymph? That’s hilarious!” 

Scanlan didn’t totally know how to feel about that either. She did a good enough job making him feel all twitterpated without being a mysterious fey seductress. Maybe it was just that the sunbeams of goodness and light were just subtextual.

Keyleth stepped forward from where the giant tree sprite had been standing, still covered in leaves and twigs though, and said, “Aren’t charms kind of your magical specialty, Scanlan?” 

He groaned. “I keep forgetting to learn how countercharm works.” 

“Did you look like Garmelie as a satyr?” Pike asked. 

Scanlan grimaced. “Please don’t ruin this for me. Was my playing at least good?” 

“It was nice!” Keyleth said gamefully. Which was nice to hear even though he didn’t really care what Keyleth thought about his music. He looked right at Pike and she hummed something softly, but smiled and nodded. 

Pike stood up with armor clunking and wheezing greaves, and then helped Scanlan up to his feet. “Maybe later you can use Seeming and show me what was going on in your head, O satyr.” 

“Oh, seeming? You’d like to experience my seeming, Pike?” 

She elbowed him in the ribs but let out a little snort-giggle and her ears went a little pink. “Maybe if you’ve got anything left before we get out of here.” 

Scanlan nodded but whatever he was going to say fell from his lips. The light of perpetual sunset was blocked by Pike’s head, but when she stepped forward, for a second the light slipped through her white, and the shell of her ear, hair like a golden pink glow.


	2. oracle scanlan part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For June's prompt at [pikelansource: Oracle/prophet of Ioun Scanlan](https://pikelansource.tumblr.com/post/619942134714384384/pikelan-day-june)
> 
> After a solid 15 years of retirement, Scanlan starts having bad dreams, which wouldn't be a worry for Pike all that much if they weren't also highly magical dreams under the auspices of Ioun. Apparently gods don't accept retirement. 
> 
> ~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oracle Scanlan part 1-- Pike wants that glowing to stop right now. 
> 
> ~*~

Before anything else, Pike feels a hard _thwap_ right below her eye that wakes her up from a dead sleep. 

Then everything else is happening a lot. 

There is magic. Just… she can feel it. Sort of everywhere. And it feels hectic.Except not hectic in the Vox “Oh my god, Oh my god someone is being stabbed to death right now” Machina way she was familiar with. So she stops looking for her mace on the wrong side of the bed and turns to Scanlan who is trashing around and then gets up, on his hands and knees, and buries his face aggressively into his pillow. More than that, it’s almost like he’s throwing off heat, she can feel it, almost see it like waves in the dark of their bedroom as her darkvision adjusts. 

“Um, Scanlan,” she touches his shoulder because he seems oblivious to her and maybe he’s sick. His skin is warm, but tense. She grabs his arm to get his attention and his arm is so taut it’s like he’s trying with all his might to pull away from her but he’s not moving at all. 

“Scanlan, what’s wrong?” She repeats and he only responds with a strangled moan. 

She tries to feel his forehead for his temperature but she can’t get her hand between his head and pillow, but feeling the side of his head feels almost like it’s vibrating, which really can’t be good. Vibrating head is like, a bad symptom.

She shakes his shoulders a little—also locked tight—and his only response to her calling is a choked whine. And it feels like it’s about to go on forever but has only been a few moments when he bolts up right, letting go of the pillow and throwing his hands out. 

And the room lights up in a purple-ish light because the third eye of Ioun is glowing brightly on his forehead, casting shadows down his face. His eyes are wide open but Pike can’t see his pupils or the whites of his eyes. His breathing is loud. The waves of, well, maybe it isn’t heat, the waves of some energy seem more visible off him. Or maybe it is heat because Pike is very warm and she can see little clouds of his breath in the glowing light of Ioun’s eye. The light is brighter than she’s ever seen on him, like its shooting down through his head putting light behind his eyes and nostrils and mouth and into his throat. 

Pike does not frequently have nightmares anymore, but she wonders for a moment if this is one. She wonders if Scanlan felt the same way she does now whenever she woke him up with hers in the past. 

“Scanlan,” she tries quietly. 

But his gaze doesn’t move from wherever it is to her. His body stays rigid and after a long moment he makes a low harsh groan, unlike his many other sounds, like its being pushed through his throat from outside and he says, loudly in a tone that distantly reminds her of him casting dominate monster, not at all his normal speaking voice: 

**_WEILDERS AND SLAVES OF CHAIN  
WITH WRATH BLEED THE PLANE_ **

“Um,” Pike says. Maybe the first time she’s ever been afraid of something Scanlan was doing, which is saying something, she touches his outstretched hand. He doesn’t shake her off or, like she would normally expect, wrap his fingers around his, but his skin is humming and hot. 

**_PLOTTING WAR SCUTTLING AGENTS OF HELL  
HAVE TAKEN THE WINGED SEER, THE WARNING BELL  
THE VANGUARD ENEMIES OF CHOICE  
OPEN THE DOOR, OPEN THE VOICE_ **

Scanlan was always skinnier than her, but the way he is lit by the glowing eye on his forehead and the way he is completely tense he looks gaunt. Then all of a sudden, Ioun’s eye vanishes, and his own eyes return, she sees for just a sliver of a second before he collapses back on his knees into the mattress. 

She pats the side of his face and forehead. “Scanlan, Scanlan, can you hear me?” He groans again but at least sounds less pained. His skin is clammy and warm, but he’s totally limp and barely even moves a finger when she squeezes his hand. 

“Scanlan,” she says, feeling a little desperate now but before she breaks into her restoration spells, she casts sanctuary on him out of panic. “Answer me. Are you okay? Can you hear me?” 

His eyes flutter open a little and he mumbles something that could be anything. 

“What happened? What the hell was that?” She urges, because she feels very urgent. 

“Wha… ? What happen?” Is what she assumes he’s saying because it’s very croaky, even for middle of the night, spent all day singing Scanlan. 

“Yes, what happened?” 

“No… what? What happened?” 

“No, you tell me what happened!” 

Scanlan’s eyes are a little clearer now but also confused. “ _What?_ ”

“Scanlan! You were just shouting about, about really scary, negative poetry about hell! Scanlan! And your eye was out!” 

His eyebrows go up and he looks at her blankly for a long moment, until his gaze drifts down to his drawers in confusion. 

Pike slaps his shoulder, but gently because she’s still totally weirded out by what happened and unsure if he is ill or injured somehow. “Your Ioun eye. The eye of Ioun! On your forehead!” 

He looks at her for a long moment and blinks. “What?’ 

After a brief moment of fake but nearly real sob-laughing, Pike explains groaning and squirrelling around and mean poetry, except she couldn’t remember the wording only that it rhymed ominously, and the glowing forehead eyeball that made all of this just a little off putting and stressful and worrisome. None of this lessens Scanlan’s confusion. His one eyebrow just continues to climb until she’s concerned it might come off. 

“I have no fucking idea, Pikey pants,” he says weakly. 

“You don’t remember? You don’t remember at all what the meaning behind it was? Or what caused it? Did you see Ioun? Were you dreaming about, I don’t know, something like that?” 

He splutters a wordless ‘I don’t know’ sound and looks honestly, completely lost. 

With a total lack of what to do or what to say, Pike just, performs a medicine check. He is still clammy, but his temperature is rapidly decreasing to a normal level. He’s completely lax now, like he has no strength left in his body, but his eyes dart around her curiously. She casts a restoration spell, which does nothing, because as she feared, there is nothing wrong with him. She wishes she’d paid more attention to the actual words he said because they’re probably important for something. But she had been too gripped by the fear of something she knows now to be true—Ioun is calling Scanlan, as her champion, to serve her. 

Ioun just made him See and she doubted it was just a one time thing. 

Pike tries not to think of all the things she’s had to do to serve Sarenrae, all the times she’s felt isolated and lonely because her dedication took her away from her family. She tries not to jump too far ahead, tries not to assume that the same is true for what Ioun is going to ask from Scanlan. Because she doesn’t know what Ioun really wants. 

But at one time, Ioun named Scanlan her champion. And he has since then trusted her and done what he was able to honor her. So Pike tries for right now to just trust Ioun won’t take too much of Scanlan. Particularly and especially, too much of Scanlan away from her. 

“Should we… I don’t know,” Scanlan says. “Do something?”

Pike feels as confused as he looks. She supposes she could pray to Sarenrae for guidance, if there’s an immediate path available to them. But at that moment, Pike doesn’t really want her own goddess piling on to say her husband has some kind of new divine task. If Sarenrae said it, she’d be compelled to act and act soon. 

If Ioun is going to give Scanlan Sight, well, Ioun can just be a little more precise about what she wants to be done. And maybe not do it in the middle of the night when no one is prepared for that kind of thing. 

“I don’t really think there’s anything we can do right now,” Pike says, feeling bad even though she’s telling the truth.  
It’s not like they had some kind of prophecy interpreter handy. And also Pike didn’t even remember the parts that rhymed anymore. She’d been a little preoccupied with worry, so she gives herself a pass. 

So they go back to bed. Pike is only able to sleep that night at all because she’d actually met Ioun that one time and she’d been a lot more chill than, say, the Raven Queen. Pike remains alert through the night, but she doesn’t actually worry the every moment awake thinking that Scanlan is doomed or anything. Or that Ioun is cruel enough to demand Scanlan’s whole life.

The next day, Scanlan doesn’t seem affected by the vision in the night at all. He still doesn’t remember it. And there’s no hubbub in the streets about chains or the doors to hell opening, or anything like that. She sees no strange portents or feels no pressing warnings when she prays to Sarenrae. The only extraordinary thing that happens is that Grog washes his “city” clothes for the month without being told to. It’s just another normal day in Westruun. Pike sleeps soundly after that.

For at least a week and a half.

Then she wakes up again in purple tinged darkness to see Scanlan, the marks of his blessing fully invoked again, sweating, humming a haunting repetitive refrain, and drawing some kind of foreign arcane sigil on the wall with a stick of kohl. 

When he’s done he drops the kohl to the floor, stumbles back to bed, and almost immediately starts snoring. 

In the darkness, she says, “Fuck.” 

~*~


	3. oracle scanlan part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For June's prompt at [pikelansource: Oracle/prophet of Ioun Scanlan](https://pikelansource.tumblr.com/post/619942134714384384/pikelan-day-june)
> 
> After a solid 15 years of retirement, Scanlan starts having bad dreams, which wouldn't be a worry for Pike all that much if they weren't also highly magical dreams under the auspices of Ioun. Apparently gods don't accept retirement. 
> 
> ~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oracle Scanlan part 2-- Scanlan attempts to gaslight everyone and himself. 
> 
> ~*~

Scanlan is tapping out a toneless 3-4 time signature with his knuckles on the table to keep his mind occupied. Well, less occupied actually. 

If he thinks about the potential of the da-da-dun-dun of future music he can almost see tiny little half-formed dancers waltzing around his hand, tripping over the grooves in the well-worn old de Rolo table. When the voluminous skirt of the tiny fake pixie falls up when she trips over his finger, he thinks possibly he’s had about enough of seeing things lately. 

He looks up and there seems to be the same consensus in the people watching him with curious concern. It doesn’t seem fair—they couldn’t possibly know about Veronica, he decides her name is. Was. He flattens his hand on the table and banishes the image of fake pixie out of his head. At least he can do that with this one. 

But it is, really, unfair. He feels like a problem child who needs to be _dealt with_ , which he has felt many, many times before, but this time it seems more it’s undeserved. 

Everyone is _watching_ him. Keyleth is staring him down like he’s a puzzle. Percy is sitting next to her, looking at him suspiciously. Vex is pacing around, looking a little bit angry and concerned and disappointed, because she really grew into that whole Mom Look thing to a frightening degree. Even Grog looks concerned. Well, he looks confused, but he knows Grog’s faces enough to know there is some concern in there, but not too much, which is reassuring. 

And of course, there’s Pike. She’s sitting next to him and she makes a tight-lipped little smile when he looks at her. Like him, she is pretending not to be worried. 

“There wasn’t really a reason to have, like, a meeting about this,” he says. “I’m not worried,” he lies. 

Well, perhaps a half lie. 

Vox Machina won’t let anything really bad happen if this… whatever this is keeps happening. Worse comes to worse, they’ll help him try to find something to help fix it, or remove it or whatever. Pike will keep an eye on him, obviously. He’s not actually worried about his, like, body and safety when he’s… wherever his mind is when this stuff happens. And whatever these… episodes are, Scanlan believes if anyone can counsel him through them, it would be Pike. And he doesn’t know where this road is leading, but he does not believe, or think, that Ioun would take him somewhere he had no chance of returning from. 

On the other hand, doubts. Big fat goliath sized doubts. 

He’s continued to explore his faith in Sarenrae and Ioun both, but he doesn’t think their protection of him is limitless. On the other hand, the path from where he is to not-his-potential-death-surely-probably-please could go any fucking where. That he does worry about quite a bit. On the other hand, he is supposed to be retired his days blissfully wed to Pike and less-blissfully-but-also-still-awesome hanging out with Grog. Literally the perfect life being threatened by this… whatever it is. 

“You blacking out and receiving visions from Ioun is, like, a perfect example of a reason to have a meeting and discuss what it means,” Keyleth says. “Obviously.” 

“I’m not blacking out. Don’t make it sound like I have a drinking problem.”

“Would that it were,” Percy says, pretending there’s some schmutz on his glasses in order to look casual, or maybe just actually cleaning his glasses in the face of Scanlan’s increasing paranoia in the things happening around him. “That actually sounds easier to fix than mystical visions.” 

“Okay well, I, for one, am glad you’re not an alcoholic, Scanlan,” Pike says, reaching to squeeze Scanlan’s hand on the table. “This is not a bad thing, that, your god,” Pike says with a bit of difficulty, but smiles, “is giving you visions. I’m not sure it’s something we need to fix at all, just uncover what they mean. It could be dangerous, but you know, it’s good nothing really serious has been put in your path, or come to any of us yet. But Ioun has to be tapping you for this for some reason.” 

“Yes, why exactly now,” Vex says as more of a statement than a question. 

“I assume that’s what the visions would tell us,” Keyleth says, “if you could remember them.”

“Sorry,” Scanlan lies. 

“Sorry,” Pike also says, but she’s probably not lying. “I couldn’t write them down in time.” 

“We need to figure out what’s going on in the world,” Keyleth adds. 

She picks up the piece of paper that Pike had written of some of the extremely hastily remembered things Scanlan had said in his sleep. And replica tracings of the sigils he had drawn on their bedroom walls. While Pike is insistent that the things he said were much more rhyme-y at the time, and he can’t summon those “scary couplets” again, he can at least read the sigils. Well, he can read about three quarters of the sigils as elements of spells he’s seen and cast himself before. But they also had symbols he has never laid eyes on and can only guess as to their meaning. 

And, well, he really wants to hold onto the notion that he has actually seen those symbols before but has simply forgot. And now his dreaming mind is putting them back together. 

Maybe!

“For whatever is bringing this on. I mean, we’re Vox Machina. I would think it’s obvious that Ioun is giving prophecies to a member of Vox Machina to, you know, _Vox-Machina it_.” 

Scanlan feels a frown on his face. He doesn’t like any of this. “Prophecies is—is that the right word? That feels like a strong word. Maybe I’m just— Maybe I’m scrying? Against my will. And I can’t remember it.” 

Even he can’t scrape the tone of desperation off his voice. 

Everyone now looks to Pike, who had described her experience of Scanlan’s _episodes_ as being startled awake by Scanlan with his third eye out, reciting poetry about the doors of the nine hells opening. And when he stopped saying whatever he was saying, he fell back in bed in a cold sweat, totally exhausted. When Pike pressed him on, you know, what the fuck was happening, his brain felt like someone put it in the bottom of well. There was something there, murky flashes in the clouded light, but it wasn’t clear. And really, he doesn’t want to see it. 

Pike’s face scrunches and she nods unhappily. “Seemed very, very,” she waggles her fingers, “oracle-y.” 

Scanlan recoils at that. He doesn’t like the word prophecy, but he was getting used to the idea that he would eventually have to accept that is what is happening. He likes the word _oracle_ even less. 

“You’re being directed towards something. None of us have, well, really flexed our abilities for a while now. If anything I’ve noticed a dimming of my lesser used skills that we used to employ in adventuring. I assumed it was the same for the rest of you. Why is it now you can suddenly start emitting prophecies, Scanlan?”

Vex does that very ‘I’m extremely canny and astute so don’t lie” look on him. 

“I don’t know!” He’s a little more defensive than he wants to be, but he doesn’t remotely know why or how, really. 

Keyleth weighs something imaginary with her hands. “You’ve spent time with the Cobalt Reserve over the years. You haven’t been trying to learn new arcane techniques or disciplines? Been messing with certain magical materials that bring on prophetic dreams?” 

Scanlan rolls his eyes. “Yeah, that would take some of the mystery out of this, no. All I’ve done for the Cobalt Reserve is hook them up with suppliers to restore their library, you know, regular Ioun stuff. And lend some advice on the areas of my expertise. And teach some wizards how to do illusions properly because, I mean you should have seen some of amateurish attempts at unconvincing—nevermind. I have not been, like, tasting prophecy potions or whatever. And let’s just… let’s just slow down with the _prophecy_ talk. Just, just say weird dreams for now until it’s totally confirmed for real.”

Pike pats his hand. “Ioun is the goddess of prophecy, sweetheart.” 

He does not say _I know_ sullenly because he does know and he is sullen. He doesn’t want to have visions and he wants to be in denial more than he is, because he wants something to push this off. No one has prophetic dreams about what the bakery down the street is having on sale next week. Prophecies don’t lead to good things. Or they might, but with the necessary caveat of a lot of bad things in between. 

It’s been over 15 years since the fall of Vecna, and other than a few minor dangerous errands and small scale adventures, Vox Machina has been successful in being retired. Well, certainly not being drawn into world ending cataclysmic disasters. Scanlan really doesn’t want to break that streak. And while he can’t remember the dreams he’s been having, the doors of hell opening sounds more cataclysm than oopsie. 

“Did you eat something funky?” Grog asks. 

“I… don’t think so. Hey that sounds fun, could it be poisoned meat?”

“No,” everyone says at the same time.

Grog adds, “Like, if you ate some kind of prodigy stone or something that gives you, I dunno, whatever it is you’re doing. You haven’t always been able to see the future?” 

“No, I have not always been able to see the future, Grog.”

“Well that’s weird. Seems like there’s no other reason it could be,” Grog says with finality. 

Scanlan groans. “Okay. Fine. It’s prophecy. I’m prophesying. Are you people happy now?” 

“I’m glad you’re up to reality now, but what’s the point if you can’t remember them?” Vex says.

“And how do we get you to do it again so we can hear one?” Keyleth says. She reaches across the table to poke him in the forehead.

Pike gently holds Keyleth’s finger when she tries to poke Scanlan again. “Obviously it’s different for people who aren’t clerics, but there’s nothing I haven’t ever been able to learn from Sarenrae by enough prayer and meditation and self-reflection.” 

Scanlan makes a doubtful sound. “I’ve never been able to summon any interaction from Ioun.” 

“I have an idea,” Keyleth says.

“Is it just flicking my forehead again in hopes that it will annoy me into turning on a prophecy?” 

“No. But I don’t think that would hurt. Anyway, druids have made their own potions to bring on visions for ages. And that’s just, to tap into insight from the universe more easily from an altered state. If you’re already open to a connection to these visions that Ioun is sending you, I think you should be able to direct your mind to whatever frequency that is. So… let’s go find some psychotropic herbs!” 

“Oh yes! Score!” Grog slaps the table in excitement.

“I can’t get stoned in the middle of the day. I have kids,” Vex says. “Well, they are busy right now.” 

Keyleth stops mid eyeroll to look considering, but then shakes her head and says to Percy’s relief and Grog’s disappointment: “I meant just for Scanlan. All things considered, since we’re trying to figure out how and why and what these visions are all about. The rest of us should just stay sober.” 

Pike knocks her shoulder against his and smirks a little. “Look on the bright side. It’s not every day you get to get turnt for god.” 

Already smelling whatever godawful tree sap poison Keyleth was going to feed him and ignoring what kind of mind-altering hell might come afterwards, Scanlan tries to force a grin. “Yep. So lucky.”


	4. class swap au-- love domain pike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The challenge for July's pikelan day-- class swaps!!! 
> 
> This is a little ficlet from Scanlan's POV about the early Vox Machina prestream days, but instead of a war domain cleric of Saranrae, Pike is a love domain cleric of Sehanine. 
> 
> ~*~

~*~ 

When Scanlan Shorthalt heard the words “Grog’s sister the cleric,” not many ideas beyond Grog in a wig with a magical staff came to mind, so he was extraordinarily surprised to meet Pike Trickfoot, a very cute gnomish adept of Sehanine, patron of moonlight and illusions, the fey goddess of trickery and lovers trysts.

He could not believe his luck. 

Scanlan had never paid more attention to Sehanine more than any other god, even though she did sound, admittedly, right up his alley. Faith wasn’t really his thing. Devotion sounded even worse. And idea of giving himself wholly to not just someone but some thing in the cosmos made him laugh, except for a tiny space deep in his stomach that didn’t find it amusing at all, and in fact, found it just a bit infuriating megapowerful celestial beings leveraged magic for people’s love and how unfair that was. Since Scanlan didn’t like to think things like unfairness, he didn’t. He would scrounge for magic all on his own, thank you very much.

But the mischievous glint in the eyes of the black-haired cleric and the ever present waves of love she exuded really could be.

Except it didn’t take long to see that while Pike had a needed skill in healing, Pike and Scanlan’s specialties in magic overlapped a bit. She did things differently, her magic imbued with a strangely close, warm divine feeling that was totally foreign to want he knew. But the first time there was a witness not responding to questions and Scanlan prepared to charm him, Pike stepped in before him to do it herself.

He saw the soft warmth of her magic around her perform a charm that previously he’d never known anyone but himself to do. It was beautiful.

And he hated it. 

She could charm and inspire and make some illusions and heal. All the skills Scanlan had to offer, spread out in slightly different directions. Scanlan had worked with groups before, traveled around for fire to kill beasts or find treasure, but his time with them never lasted long. And he figured it would be the same this time. Why would they need two gnomes with similar magic, when she was a much stronger healer?

Scanlan decided to take the opportunity of The Shits arriving in a new bustling town to part ways with the group. Quick and easy, he snuck out of his shared room at the Inn, not even disturbing Grog’s heavy snoring. But Pike stopped him not more than three steps down the stairs that went down to the now mostly abandoned tavern of the late late night or early early morning.

She was just unnaturally there, sitting on the stairwell landing, under a window the moon shone through. There was a covered bench smelling faintly of stale beer and the ancient wooden planks off the inn wheezed beneath them whenever either of them moved, but she smiled serenely like she belonged there in her slinky red nightgown and lacy pink robe and the glittering pendant of Sehanine she always wore.

“Aren’t you going to say goodbye?”

He quickly ate the frown that had appeared on his face. It wasn’t good to let people know what you were thinking. “Goodbye, sugar. It was fun while it lasted. Give my regards to The Shits. If we ever cross paths in the future, I’ll be sure to skip town before I’m settled with another bar tab.”

He attempted to continue on his way, but her soft voice, reminiscent of some kind of frosted cookie he always felt for some reason, wafted across him like crowbar to the kneecap.

“Leaving us won’t make you less afraid.”

Once he could swallow the gorge of unexpected emotion back down to wherever he hid it normally, Scanlan turned to look at her. In a move of unexpected cruelty, her perfect gnomish face was a perfect composition of perfect kindness tinged with sadness.

“Who’s afraid of anything? Possessions? Gross necromancers? Hulking monsters? That’s the adventuring life and I’ve been doing it longer than any of you.”

“No, that’s true. I was a little surprised by that, but that’s not what you’re afraid of.”

Scanlan sighed, gratified by the annoyance. “Can the cryptic. I’m leaving because it doesn’t make any sense to have two people with the same skillset on a team.”

“I really don’t think overlap is the problem. Our methods are different enough. And Vex and Percy both deal ranged attacks. Vex and Vax are both sneaky. Redundancy isn’t bad.”

“Well, you’re not the one being made redundant so your opinion on the topic is of limited value to me,” Scanlan said, trying for an edge he normally didn’t have.

It may have succeeded, a sour little frown appeared on Pike’s face. Unless she was in battle, she always looked beatific as standard fare. So he felt a small degree of satisfaction in winging her on his way out, as it were.

“I don’t look at it that way. It’s fine that we can both rely on charms. It’s fine that we both have illusions and boons at our disposal. It’s great that we can both heal.”

“Except you can heal more than I can, and if you can cover all the other areas I’m situationally useful in, why would they need me?”

“Ah, so” she said knowingly. “It’s not just that you have to be special, you have to be useful too.” 

Terrifyingly, he opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. There were plenty of times he had no plan for what he was going to say, but it was rare indeed that the well was ever empty. She continued to speak in his place and given the circumstances, he couldn’t tell if that was good or bad.

“Is that why you’ve left every other group you’ve been with? Someone else could do the things you can do?”

“We–we’re adventurers!” Scanlan said, raising his voice to a level he did, maybe once every five years. “Everyone has to be useful. Why are we even doing these things if not to succeed, get gold, or renown, or hell, even turn a good deed every once in a while. And you can’t do any of those things if everyone on the team doesn’t play their part. With you here, I don’t exactly have a part, do I?”

Pike’s face softened again with sympathy, that kindness within her blooming on her face again, in her cheeks and her eyes. And while it was lovely, it only made Scanlan angrier because that hadn’t been his goal at all. At least point, he wanted her mad, at least a portion as angry as he was, so he could leave feeling safe with a bridge burned behind him.

“Of course you still have a part, Scanlan. So what if we do some of the same things. We do them entirely differently. We think about illusions and charms differently. Just as Sehanine will, hopefully, continue to bless me with gifts no one else can understand, you use the arcane in a way none of us can understand either. And I’m surprised you never thought this worth mentioning considering how often I’ve heard you brag about it, but… Scanlan, you’re a bard! Just being that you can get us audiences with people we would have never otherwise. You’ve created stories about us that people know about Vox Machina before we’ve even met them. So, I’m sorry you felt like I was replacing you, but maybe you can understand that to me it seems at least a little bit like you’re fooling yourself so you don’t have to get any more comfortable with us than you already have.”

After waiting for a word from Scanlan that did not come, Pike continued, “Because that’s what you’re afraid of, isn’t it? Attachments. Real ones that really attach to you. Loving people, or letting people love you. Either or.”

He was laden down with his bags, pouches, bedroll, a lute, flute, and a shawm and they all felt like a hundredweight heavier. Still he shook his head.

“You obviously aren’t familiar with the legacy of Scanlan Shorthalt. I’ve loved many people. Probably hundreds,” he said, but even to him his voice was empty of the humor or bravado that gave him his usual panache. It was just empty. It had always been empty, only now he couldn’t pretend.

Pike touched her holy symbol, grasped her fingers around it reverently even though she must have been blindly intimate with it at this point. Yet still, reverent.

It made him think. He hated thinking.

“You can leave if you really want to, Scanlan,” she said. “But I wouldn’t be happy with myself if I let you leave thinking you needed to, or that you aren’t allowed to want something else.”

Scanlan looked down the stairs to the empty tavern and back at the moonlight spilling over Pike’s dark hair.

“Maybe I should give it more time. Think it over. If you’re… okay working together.”

Pike’s smile lit up the small tiny space deep in his stomach that, if normally anything at all, was dull and bitter and distant, now felt lighter and more present.

“Good.” She rose and stood shoulder to shoulder with him as they walked back towards the rooms Vox Machina had rented.

“But I should probably confess something.”

“Well, well, well, a cleric’s confession,” he said, with more humor than he felt, still reeling from all her words, but really, truthfully, “I definitely want to hear that.”

“You need to stay for your own reasons, that’s true, but I still have selfish reasons for wanting you to stay.“

“Oh?” Scanlan said casually, white-knuckling the strap for his lute around his chest.

“Sehanine loves music,” Pike said with a devilish smile.

Scanlan thought that was all she would say, but she paused, leaned into Scanlan’s space and kissed his cheek. Just a soft press of her lips that left a warm lingering pulse spread across his face.

“I love music.”

And with that, Pike left him.

For the first time in a long time, when he went back into his room, and put down his packs and supplies and bedroll, he was pretty sure it was a decision his heart made.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~*~
> 
> Tell me I'm great!


	5. class swap au-- swashbuckler scanlan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The challenge from July's pikelan day-- class swap au! That I actually wrote a few months ago lol.
> 
> This is a pre- canon au from Pike's POV, where instead of ever becoming part of Vox Machina, Scanlan spent years on the high seas using his high charisma in a different way, but now their paths have crossed. 
> 
> ~*~

~*~

Traversing the oceans with The Broken Howl, sailor and cleric Pike Trickfoot is seeing the world for the first time. She comes across a gnomish entertainer Scanlan Shorthalt in a port town while the Howl is docked for pickup, singing shanties in a lively bar. As the only other gnome around, she talks with him for a while, indulging his flirtation because, because… he’s a gnome, perhaps. Not because she’s lonely or bored, of course. And he is a little bit charming.

But she declines his offer for anything more.

However one night at land unexpectedly turns to three, each night Pike returns to talk to the singing privateer. They exchange stories of sea travels and gnomish upbringing until a bit more in Scanlan’s rooms. When she sees a strange symbol branded on his shoulder that makes her wonder if he is maybe not just a bored musician, or not just a privateer, she discards it. She leaves port the next day, when she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it if she was very concerned. Which she isn’t. Scanlan seems pretty harmless, for all his boasting and rather impressive sword.

Two months later she had all but forgotten the encounter when The Broken Howl is boarded the crew of a speedy, lean brig named The Golden Grin. Her former acquaintance isn’t singing now–he is making a show of brandishing that rather impressive sword, and Pike doesn’t feel the need to guess if he’s a privateer or a pirate anymore.

There is a large half-orc captain of The Grin who makes the charge towards The Howl’s captain, and when Pike tries to run for him she quickly feels a hand clamp over her mouth and an imploring voice near her ear, in hurried gnomish, “Don’t go down for a crew where you don’t even get a full share of your profits, sweetheart.”

She pushes him away and tries to flatten him with her mace, but either her anger at his sheer audacity blinds her, or he’s too focused on evading her to even strike her. Either way before she knows it the half-orc pushes her captain onto the deck, and halts the remaining fights by announcing that The Howl is surrendering and they are announcing terms. The terms are, generally speaking, a peaceful handing over of cargo for their lives. Without much regard for fighting her anymore, Scanlan scampers over to his own captain.

All the crewmembers of The Howl are restrained while the rest of The Grin empties out their hold. Except Scanlan, who after a brief, but animated talk with the half-orc, returns to Pike and cuts the binds around her wrists.

“The captain is offering you a spot on The Grin. A full share in bounty, a vote in ship business, and freedom to leave when we dock and everything.”

Pike frowns. “I don’t believe you.”

“Which part?”

Pike, flustered, shakes her head. “All of it.”

“How do you think pirate crews get half their ranks? We offer in to the crews we capture. You get to vote on what the captain decides. I bet you can’t say the same for life on a merchant ship. And the pay is better.”

“But you’re not offering this to the whole crew.” She points at the noticeably still tied up people around the deck.

He shrugs. “They’re not worth it. We don’t need them.”

Pike scowls. “If you think this means you get to buy me or keep me, you are sadly mistaken, buster.”

Scanlan puts his hands up in faux surrender. “You can stay right here if you wish. I told you its an offer. And, well, I can’t say I don’t have fond feelings for you and I remember our night of bliss, oh so very well, that argument really wouldn’t fly with my crew, as they couldn’t give a shit about my love life. I would think, actually, most of them are actively against me pursuing one. No, no, you’re getting the offer because you’re a cleric.”

He pulls a small purse from off his belt and puts it in Pike’s hand and it’s heavy and it clinks. “Healers get a signing bonus.” He leans in a little and says in gnomish, “And I’ll even convince the captain to let you stay with your crew with the money in your hand, if you can say that your ship being boarded by pirates isn’t the most exciting thing that’s happened since you set sail.”

He walks away with a shrug, back to his captain. Pike isn’t under any illusions. There’s a few pirates watching the mostly bound crew of The Howl, with Scanlan and his captain watching other Grin crewmates emptying the hold, with still more back on The Grin itself. She’s now far more outnumbered than before, even if she really wanted to fight back.

She doesn’t want to.

The little purse in her hand is very nice, but now the word exciting is weighing heavy in her mind. Didn’t she tell Grog she was going to see the world, not just auction block to auction block for a merchant ship? Didn’t she keep talking to Scanlan those months ago to hear about his adventurous tales?

As The Grin starts gearing up to take their hooks from The Howl, and the crew has all but departed, true to his promise of choice, no one comes near Pike to force her aboard The Grin. Although the half-orc captain does stare at her quite sternly, and just before he is about to board his own ship, he says gruffly, “Alright and what about you?”

Pike gives an apologetic look to her former crew, and walks aboard The Grin with him.

She tries to ignore the smugly grinning gnome on the main deck watching her as she boards. 

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is fun. www.pikelansource.tumblr.com

**Author's Note:**

> ~*~
> 
> Thanks! Tell me you love me!


End file.
